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Every year, the Sundance Film Festival hosts an impressive number of independent films, documentaries, and short films from all around the world. Titles like The Usual Suspects, Memento, Reservoir Dogs, Clerks, Napoleon Dynamite, Super-Size Me, Saw, and Little Miss Sunshine have all found success at the world-renowned festival. So it’s no surprise that this years line-up is definitely keeping with that reputation. A number of documentaries, including the Amir Bar-Lev’s Grateful Dead tribute Long Strange Trip and Jeff Orlowski’s follow-up to his 2012 Chasing Ice feature, Chasing Coral, have already premiered to great praise from festival attendees and critics alike. At the same time, a number of films have already been purchased for distribution, including Patti Cake$ by former doorman-turned-filmmaker Wass Stevens, which sold to Fox Searchlight for $10.5 million! Here are a few of the festival entries that have caught our eye for expanded release. We’ll post more information about domestic releases as we get further into the year. Continue reading →

Today’s Memorable Movie Moment takes us back to 1978, for the excellent cinematography in a film called Days of Heaven. Written and directed by 3x Oscar nominee Terrence Malick (The Thin Red Line, The Tree of Life), Days of Heaven is an American epic that follows a young couple, Bill and Abby, during the Expansionist era in 1916. Moving from Chicago to Texas in search of work, the two become involved in a scheme to have Abby marry a wealthy farmer who is close to death in order to gain his fortune. This, of course doesn’t go according to plan and so a dramatic conflict of jealousy and deceit ensues, loosely based on a backstory that first appeared in Alexander Dumas‘ The Three Musketeers.

Starring Richard Gere (An Officer and a Gentlemen, Pretty Woman), Brooke Adams (Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Dead Zone), and Sam Shepard (Swordfish, Black Hawk Down), the film received Oscar nominations for Best Costume Design, Best Sound, and Best Music – Original Score. Although it failed to win any of these awards, Days of Heaven did receive the Oscar for Best Cinematography for Nestor Almendros. Continue reading →

Today in movie history, revered editor and sound engineer Walter Murch was born in New York City in 1943. Murch first gained momentum in the film industry working with Oscar-winner Francis Ford Coppola on his film The Rain People (1969) before going on to work with George Lucas on THX1138 (1971) and American Graffiti (1973). He then furthered his professional relationship with Coppola working on films like The Godfather Part II (1974) and The Conversation (1974), the latter which earned him his first Academy Award nomination. His first major contribution to film came on Coppola’s iconic Vietnam drama, Apocalypse Now (1979), for which he won his first Oscar. Murch used a multi-track recording system to create new sounds that invoked both physical tension and psychological drama against the back-drop of Coppola’s war epic. Murch went on to serve as both sound and picture editor for numerous films, winning double Oscars for The English Patient in 1996 for Best Editor and Best Sound Editor. His work with Coppola continued throughout his career, working on films like The Godfather Part III (1990) and Tetro (2009); he also received a double Oscar-nomination in 1990 for The Godfather Part III and Ghost with Patrick Swayze, Demi Moore, and Whoopi Goldberg. Continue reading →

With Daniel Craig (Layer Cake, Quantum of Solace) sadly stepping down from the role, speculation continues to circle the web as to who is going to replace him as the world’s most famous spy. Although MGM had reportedly offered Craig £68 million for a further two films, plus shares, inside reports have stated that Craig is simply done with the role, and is moving on. And so now must producers Barbara Broccoli (GoldenEye, The World is Not Enough) and Michael G. Wilson (For Your Eyes Only, License to Kill), along with the heads at MGM, decide on a new actor to further the franchise. The favored choice, at least according to all the rumors, is Avengers and High-Rise actor Tom Hiddleston, who has thus far denied all of the rumors, but who, I’m sure, is not completely against the idea. Another name that has come up is Aiden Turner (The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, Poldark), but according to a more recent report from the Daily Mail, Billy Eliot and Nymphomaniac star Jamie Bell is in actual talks with the producers to take over the role. Continue reading →

A new war drama from director Gavin Hood (X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Ender’s Game) titled Eye in the Sky is opening in theaters nationwide this Friday, March 11th. The film is led by Oscar-winning actress Helen Mirren (The Queen, The Hundred-Foot Journey) and features an ensemble of stars including Aaron Paul (Breaking Bad, Exodus: Gods and Kings), Barkhad Abdi (Captain Phillips, Hawaii Five-O) and Phoebe Fox (One Day, A Poet in New York), as well as the late Alan Rickman (Die Hard, Love Actually), who died just last month. Screenwriter Guy Hibbert (Five Minutes of Heaven, A United Kingdom) wrote the script about a military colonel commanding a drone operation to capture terrorists in Kenya, who becomes enthralled in an international debate over the morality, and the implications of modern warfare when a young girl enters the Kenyan kill zone where the operation is taking place. Although this will be his last full-length feature appearing in the flesh, Alan Rickman’s last official film will be the upcoming sequel to Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland, titled Alice Through the Looking Glass, expected in theaters this coming May. The trailer for Eye in the Sky is available here on MADE. Check it out in theaters this Friday.

A new action-thriller titled No Escape from writer/director John Erick Dowdle (Quarantine, As Above So Below) is now playing on big screens nationwide. Starring Owen Wilson (Wedding Crashers, Midnight in Paris) and Lake Bell (Million Dollar Arm, In A World…), the film centers on an American couple and their children living in a SE Asian country who must flee to the American Embassy when a war breaks out between the local military and radical protesters taking to the streets. Golden Globe nominee Pierce Brosnan (GoldenEye, Die Another Day) and actor/producer Sahajak Boonthanakit (Elephant White, Only God Forgives) also appear in the supporting cast. The film was originally slated for a February release under the name The Coup but was pushed back for a Fall release instead. Director Dowdle and his brother Drew (who lent a hand in writing the script) are also producing the project through their company Dowdle Brothers Productions, along with The Weinstein Company and Bold Films. The trailer is available here on MADE. Enjoy!

Starting today movie-goers can see some big summer flicks opening on the big screen. First up is the new comedy Pixels with Adam Sandler (Billy Madison, Mr. Deeds), Kevin James (The King of Queens, Grown Ups), Michelle Monoghan (Eagle Eye, True Detective), Josh Gad (21, The Wedding Ringer), and Peter Dinklage (The Station Agent, Game of Thrones). As I’m sure you are aware, Sandler and company will be joining up to defend Earth from an alien invasion of Nintendo characters like Donkey Kong and Pac-Man. Stupid? Yes, but so was Happy Gilmore, Austin Powers, and Hot Tub Time Machine, and they were all hilarious, so don’t be too quick to judge. Also opening in theaters today is the new boxing drama from Sons of Anarchy writer Kurt Sutter, Southpaw, with Jake Gyllenhaal (October Sky, Prisoners), Rachel McAdams (The Time Traveler’s Wife, Wedding Crashers), and Forest Whitaker (Phone Booth, The Last King of Scotland). This one is definitely not your easy-going comedy like Pixels, but with Kurt Sutter behind the pen and a strong cast line-up it should turn out to be a good watch. Enjoy the weekend!

No doubt you’ve noticed all the new commercial space being added for the upcoming comedy Pixels with Adam Sandler (Happy Gilmore, Click) and Kevin James (The King of Queens, Grown Ups). The movie is opening on big screens across the country this Friday (July 24th) from director Chris Columbus (The Goonies, Home Alone) and screenwriters Tim Herlihy (The Wedding Singer, Big Daddy) and Timothy Dowling (Role Models, Just Go With It). Also starring in the movie is Michelle Monoghan (Eagle Eye, True Detective), Peter Dinklage (The Station Agent, Game of Thrones), and Josh Gad (Love & Other Drugs, The Wedding Ringer), and special appearances by Brian Cox (Braveheart, The Bourne Supremacy), Sean Bean (GoldenEye, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring), and comedy veteran Dan Aykroyd (Ghostbusters, The Blues Brothers). The movie will also include your favorite video game characters (like Pac-Man and Donkey Kong), as they are sent to Earth by aliens to invade the planet and wipe-out the human race!! Stupid? Yes. Hilarious….definitely!! The trailer is available here on MADE. Enjoy!!

You’ve probably started to see TV-spots for the upcoming comedy Pixels with Adam Sandler (Happy Gilmore, Big Daddy) and Kevin James (The King of Queens, Grown-Ups) on your flat-screens. We first caught wind of this project about a year ago when it was announced that Michelle Monaghan (Eagle Eye, True Detective) and Peter Dinklage (The Station Agent, Game of Thrones) would also be joining the cast, and with the movie still scheduled to open in theaters this July 24th, the crew is now full-swing in post production. Harry Potter and Home Alone director Chris Columbus is leading the project with a script from Timothy Dowling (Just Go With It, This Means War) and Tim Herlihy (Mr. Deeds, Grown-Ups 2), written from a short by Patrick Jean. If you’ve seen the TV-spots then you get the premise: video-game heros like Donkey Kong and Pac Man come to Earth as an alien species and begin to go “Godzilla” on the human race. Pretty hilarious idea; so much so that I think it may actually be worth seeing in theaters. Enjoy!

We were all pretty surprised to see that Liam Neeson would be appearing in a sequel to his 2008 action thriller Taken, but seeing as they made a 2nd I guess they may as well go ahead and make a 3rd. Yes, a 3rd. Liam Neeson will grace the screen one more time this January as ex-CIA agent Bryan Mills, who has a wife and daughter that, for some reason, always seem to be the target of a kidnapping plot. This time out Mills finds himself framed for the murder of his ex-wife, and must ensue on a new mission to clear his name by finding the true killer before the authorities track him down. Oscar-winner Forest Whitaker (Phone Booth, Lee Daniel’s The Butler) will be joining the supporting cast along with Maggie Grace (Taken, The Fog) and Famke Janssen (GoldenEye, X-Men) returning as daughter Kim and ex-wife Lenore. Screenwriting/directing duo Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen (Leon: The Professional, The Fifth Element), who wrote both Taken and Taken 2, penned the new script for director Olivier Megaton (Transporter 3, Taken 2). Check out the new trailer here on MADE; the new movie comes out January 9th. Also opening on January 9th is director Paul Thomas Anderson‘s upcoming LA-noir drama Inherent Vice with Joaquin Phoenix and Josh Brolin, as well as Ava DuVernay’s Civil Rights drama Selma with David Oyelowo and Tim Roth, so be sure to mark your calendar for January 9!